1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system which retrieves a medical image serving as a reference for the interpretation of a medical image.
2. Description of the Related Art
A radiologist for medical images is required to determine from a large number of images whether, for example, there is a lesion or a given tumor is benign or malignant. Various techniques have therefore been proposed to support diagnosis. For example, there has been proposed an apparatus which can support diagnosis in accordance with the purpose or contents of diagnosis by allowing selective use of diagnosis support contents prepared in advance (see JP-A No. 2003-126045 (KOKAI). There has also been proposed a system which automatically outputs medical information concerning medical images by associating the feature amount of a region of interest with the medical information (see JP-A No. 2006-34337 (KOKAI)). A radiologist can efficiently perform image diagnosis while referring to the diagnosis result obtained by another radiologist. CAD (Computer-Aided Detection) systems which aid radiologists have been introduced into many medical institutions. The CAD systems derive numerical values characterizing medical images. Currently, however, there is no simple mechanism which automatically retrieves images as references for radiologists.